Moving
by lotus-bugxm9
Summary: Sasuke had left for good yet with the help of a certain young Kazekage and his sand siblings did she finally see it was time to let it all, go. Gaara/Naruko....one-shot


**Title:** Moving

**Author: **lotus-bugxm9

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Naruto.

**A/n: **Gaara/Naruko. I am shocked there is not more out there on this couple for a few steps backwards Sasuke being my first favorite match for her fem. Naruto Gaara would be a good choice too as it would be one word :: Hot:: Woot!! Yeeeeah.

Beta'd by Sasukez

**Enjoy**

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Cerulean eyes gazed down at the white snow, her fingers numb with cold. Bittersweet tears ran continuously down her face. Naruko sat in the cold for what seemed like countless hours, flecks of puffy white coating her orange and black outfit, weighing her down. She felt the chills worsen as the settings sun's last rays washed over her hunched over back. She looked to the footprints that were beginning to fade into nothingness that brought her back to the sinking, crushing reality.

He had been there and she had been there. Their confrontation had been short, but she still felt the whiplash. Nothing had really been exchanged from her heart those moments ago. Her heart still hammered unevenly in her chest, her tears falling down to freeze over her skin. Biting her lip to contain her sobs, she shook her head back and forth, not wanting to believe the truth: That Uchiha Sasuke was dead.

He wasn't physically dead. He was still breathing and living out there wherever he may be. But he was dead to her. It had been made clear that her endless feelings for him were not reciprocated when she had been shot down before they had even been spoken. Those long time feelings she had for him, held under lock and key for what seemed like a lifetime of suffering, were unrequited.

Her chest ached with the pain of the memory of his face. It had been as blank as a canvas, those red eyes of his, which, now, after six years of being apart, were hollow and dead to the real world. He now relyied, solely, on his own created monster bent universe of revenge and the powerfully curupted. And yet, he was so mesmerizing to her. That longing that she just had to console in and prevent him from disappearing without a trace, even with his not real death, made her heart burn and left her feeling empty.

Would he ever get that revenge he wanted? She hoped not and even if he ever did, she knew there would be one more person in his way. There would be one more person in his path to obtain his ultimate goal. There was one more person ready to stop him if it came down to it. There was a person that would stop him from possibly making the biggest mistake of his life. It was her. His new team was insanely strong, there was no doubt about it. He had it all planned out. Her only hope in stopping him was that she was somewhat smarter in sanity when it came to him. She was pathetic.

As his footprints began to vanish in the snow, her eyes closed themselves, tightly, knowing she couldn't continue like that. She was still young and alive, unlike him. She dwelled on the gut wrenching realization that there wasn't anymore she could do to help him. True, she was still in love with him, or rather his ghost more than anything. She was still in love with their days as happy, bickering teammates and playing out in the breezy, refreshing air of Konoha

Her heart sped wild at the mere thought of him and the image of his retreating back, fading into the white backdrop. She knew not all was lost at least. A lot had happened in her short lifetime, many things changing and many things standing still.

She wasn't alone. The scarf wrapped around her neck along with the long, twisting tresses of blonde hair billowed up in a gust of wind, the breeze drying her tears and turning her lips delicately blue. It somehow felt good, she thought, the sounds of crunching footsteps in the thick powder distant. She barely heard them coming her way. She didn't even bother looking up to the mocking swirling grey heavens.

Warmth was so near to her then, that her eyes moved up to the side, slowly picking up trenches of crimson. She let go of a deep gasp as soon as she felt those pale fingertips graze at her whisker marked cheeks turned cold. Looking up, her eyelashes crystallized as they fluttered open, she took comfort in the hand cupping her cheek now as her face moved up with it she finally saw the owner's face.

"He left," was all she answered, heartbroken, at the unspoken question. Her blue eyes stared back into the face of one of her dearest friends. Though he was much more than that, she reasoned, a tingly feeling at her lips as they trembled from cold and fear as he knelt besides her now in the thick, ice. "I don't want him to be dead! I don't G-Gaara...please...just bring him back. I want my friend. I want him to be real again! He's-...!?" she whimpered uncomplete.

Gaara's hand remained on her cheek to caress the wet tears. He listened to all of it as his long red coat along with the swirling brown cloak wrapped around his body, floating around in the chilling winds. Taking her other cheek in his palm, those darkly-rimmed green eyes not betraying anything out of him, he lowered his lips to hers in a kiss. It was soft. It was barely existent. The ugly fact was that her lips were so dry they weren't helping much. Yet, with the single, light contact over her mouth, she felt her heart suddenly slowing.

Raising a hand to softly twirl her pop-sickle cold fingers in his soft, spiking mane of fire colored hair, now, at dusk, turning blood red, her eyes closed did a shuttering puff of icy air leave her lips as she met back with his, molding around them in an instant, powerful kiss of ice mets heat

With her lungs expanding, it seemed she was sucking all the heat and possibly his soul out from him which was no longer tainted with dark but now a guiding ray of shining moonlight calling out to her. He gave it to her oh so willingly. He understood her suffering. He lived with it day by day, its lingering feelings never to be forgotten. The two hosts, one a former and one carrying the sly fox, flourished in one another's presence.

Strong arms pulled her close before she knew it. Despite the sweet kisses which filled her with warmth, the sound of his heart beneath his leather clad chest, a slow, patient melody, was it a soothing song to her ears. Here in the embrace of Gaara, the blonde felts safe with the fifth Kazekage. He was a loyal and trusted long friend as much as he was a part of repairing the damage done to her heart that he was already such a large part of.

Sobbing into the connecting kiss that she broke off, for different reasons than he thought, she whispered to him how sorry she was. Her plump lips kissed over his handsome face an his taste was still so lovely on the tip of her tongue it was pure heady posion as well as her, cure. She had never thought about it clearly until then how all of this affected not only her but him as well. Just the thought of ever seeing pain cross over his face, all because of her, filled her with a terrible dread and she vowed she would never ever do it again.

With those thoughts so frantically running around inside her skull, her head slid down and down with growing fuzziness. She felt a surprising jolt as those strong arms curved under her legs and quivering shoulders before she could fall. She was hoisted off of the ground and into the dancing snowflakes then before she knew it.

"He is gone Naruko..." Gaara's gentle, yet strong words pierced through her like nothing she'd felt before. Knowing those words were true, she lifted her sluggish, stiff arms come around his neck. She bit down on her lip, knowing all of this cruelty from Sasuke's final departcher first hand. "You're still here," he acknowledged in fog.

Her finger interlocked without releasing him. She hung limply in his arms like a useless rag doll for just as they began to move ahead back into the distant wilderness more footsteps sloshing in the snow were heard to her to announce the arrival of Temari and Kankuro. Nodding her head, barely, in understanding of the continuing journey, she was given a thick Suna cloak. It was wrapped snugly around her body by her older, adopted sister. She was grateful.

Peelling back his high caller to press her warming lips, momentarily, against the side of her saviors neck, she gave the powerful, young Kazekage one last kiss her body still felt so heavy, just like his gord of precious, deadly sand. She began to process that she was slightly thawing. The weight in her chest like ice breaking apart swelled with renewed, instense feelings at the pictures of Gaara, just moments ago standing like a protecting angle in the backfall of white, waiting her, as she addmited her deepest desires to the long lost enemy who would never hear trully of them on such muted ears.

In a way without words, since her throat was to clogged with nonsense, word vomit, with those tears begining to dry completely in the cool winter's bit was she telling her new love of the sand, who so close up smelled faintly of welcoming cinnamon and the refreshing desert winds of his homeland, that she thanked him. For much like the visible, red painted word on his forehead, just like his staring, jade, midnight coated eyes, she said without words how much she loved him, the love, thay shared together as one.

"Do itashimashite," he cooed back.

Just as effortlessly, the shell of emotion cracking, his mouth came down to her head in an affectionate, lingering kiss to show that he was there for her as always as were his guarding siblings. With those fingers tightening around her, a security blanket and comfort she had never known before she had met him and decovered such things was she happy even in this time of cruilty and lost hope as he bidded her then his final words of goodnight.

"Now rest," he ordered her and, not bothering to reply, she did so, suddenly more tired then she had originally thought for with that chizeld out of the ice heart of hers beat now strongly within as she was falling down and down now into that all comsuming peace she so, craved. "For just sleep...." His slowling down husking words were beginning to blur together to form the ultimate perfect picture of rewarded simplicity.

Even though Sasuke was gone, his footprints and lifeless eyes still following the four of them on their travels through the snowy forests thier goaling location laying beyond in the misty hills did the blond truly know then more than ever before that she had a home and a place to go back to.

That was the difference between her and the dead, for unlike him, that tiny piece of her chipped away heart would always be there with him no matter the endless miles apart, were only other with their hollow shells, rebuked and rebuilt until disrepair could only dream of the living. Letting out a short, calming breath, knowing that all was good, with her pink freckled nose burrying itself in her love's warm shoulder, Naruko closed her eyes with a tiny smile as she fell into a winters slumber, the sky above them swirling in its artic rainbow hues of the coming promises of tomorrow.

**~End~**

**So how was it???!!! I enjoyed writing it for other then Sasuke being my number one favorite Naruto character of all time Gaara is still in my top ten as he is awesome and yes I am aware he is a few inches shorter then the average Naruto boy but who gives a &$*!! lol. Reviews would be great for with the insane number of Naruto stories I am surprised most peeps get around to them at all but reviewing is key people as it gives us writers hope-hope-hope!! so plez review!! **

**By the way "DO itashimashite" means in Japanese ::Your welcome:: I think?? um....."sweat drops" blame Google.**


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